Hi there,
I've been watching gameplay footage of DoF for some time now and I am quite interested. However I do have some questions...

1) Is it an RTS? By this I mean is it like Tribal Wars where I'll have to wait hours just to attack/wait for my troops to get back? Or is it more like Medival Total War where I can instantly join a battle?

2) I keep seeing the term "crown", will players who buy crowns do better than those who don't? And if so isn't this a bit like a Pay to Win?

3) Is it Open World? By that I mean are there hundreds of players per map?

Thanks you for answering my questions.

Regards,
Sheip

theinternetman

06-18-2013, 05:51 PM

1) It's a real time strategy game. The tactics aren't quite as advanced as the Total War series but it's that same core design of real time strategy, not turn based.

2) Crowns can be earned in-game by completing tasks and I believe you can trade gold for crowns. So it's the antithesis of pay2win.

Also here's a giveaway for some free stuff to get you started:
http://www.alienwarearena.com/giveaway/dawn-of-fantasy-kingdom-wars-starter-pack-key-giveaway/

3) The game is not open world, so far there isn't an open world RTS in existence. Each location is its own instance. There is an open game map you can travel around, similar to the Total War series.

I'm still waiting for some company to produce an online RTS where players occupy the game map in real time and each player controls an instance of their own. Dawn of fantasy would be close but there's no territory control and it's not like you can move around the map and find other players settlements and attack them or trade with them. It's all based in a matchmaking instance instead. Currently Dawn of Fantasy's multiplayer can be chalked up to a system similar to Dark Souls where you can co-operate with other players in an instance or wage siege or war upon other players in an instance The current lack of player territory/map occupation is the thing holding DoF back from being insanely successful and groundbreaking.

Also the UI isn't my style but on the upside I'm working on a UI overhaul as I post this so look forward to that if the UI is bugging you.

e: You can also freely screw with the UI/textures if you have the Nvidia plugin for Photoshop.

GPS51

06-18-2013, 06:06 PM

One of our goals is to have guilds fighting/controlling tracts of land on the world map, it's not going to be a quick addition but still, we do plan to add it. Whether that means the land will have a "guild color" or the guild flag on it or what have you we don't know yet. We plan to add things like formation set up in the pre battle like the TW series. Also we're kicking around a few ideas to add some towns to the world map without adding ALL of them because it would be 1 large suburb on the world map with no land visible.

theinternetman

06-18-2013, 06:15 PM

One of our goals is to have guilds fighting/controlling tracts of land on the world map, it's not going to be a quick addition but still, we do plan to add it. Whether that means the land will have a "guild color" or the guild flag on it or what have you we don't know yet. We plan to add things like formation set up in the pre battle like the TW series. Also we're kicking around a few ideas to add some towns to the world map without adding ALL of them because it would be 1 large suburb on the world map with no land visible.

Hey that was quick thanks for the feedback. Yeah it's certainly not an easy goal. I think you have the right track in letting groups of players influence territory control by way of instanced battles, rather letting players control their own chunk of land. Even if nothing really changes except parts of the map have different colored overlays based on what faction/race/guild controls them or something, and control just consists of a win/loss ratio of a guild or race in a matchmaking district for that region. I just think people need to feel there's some sort of way to influence the world around them with other players. It's worth a shot to prototype even if at the start there's no bonus or incentive to doing it beyond bragging rights. Right now the normal benefits of laying siege to other players seems to be adequate.

e: I also never would have thought DoF would have lasted this long or hit steam greenlight so you guys must be doing something right.